


Dance the Night Away

by Patroie



Series: Of Foxes and Nightingales [2]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Dancing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patroie/pseuds/Patroie
Summary: “Is there anything alcoholic in that drink?” he asked, eying the plastic cup she was holding in her hand.“Of course not.” The answer came too quickly to be truthful.“Somehow I don’t believe you”
Relationships: Abigail Kamara & Thomas Nightingale
Series: Of Foxes and Nightingales [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2215161
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Dance the Night Away

As the sun completed it’s descent against the horizon and the river Thames was tinged in a dark, violet light Thomas Nightingale extracted himself from a conversation between Richard Grant and his son.

Scanning the crowd with practised ease he found Abigail Kamara standing on her own, standing slightly apart from the crowd, looking over the river Thames.

She was, surprisingly enough, wearing a dress, and had braided her hair in a neat, dark crown sitting on her head, looking so grown up that, when he had seen her that morning, he had, with a start, realised that the young girl that had walked into his home on the promise that she would be taught magic if she did her GCSEs in Latin had grown into a young woman without him noticing. Soon enough he would have to go through on Peter’s promise and begin her magical education in earnest.

Soon enough she would be done with school and move on to University, start an independent life on her own. She would excel at it, he was sure, but at the same time he was reluctant to let her go.

“Are you cold?” he asked, joining her at the waterside.

Abigail nodded. “It’s a bit chilly, yeah”

He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. While he at times felt as if the cold he had experienced during the war still had not seeped out of his bones, he didn’t mind the chilly weather of the british spring, especially as it was these days, in contrast to the times in which he had grown up, with snow piling up during the Christmas holidays, he and his siblings spending the days outside, building snowmen, always interrupted by snowball fights breaking out in the spur of the moment. Mama had hated it when they had made a mess of themselves, especially if little Margaret had been caught up in it, but that had not been able to stop five young men and their tomboyish sister.

"Thank you"

“Is there anything alcoholic in that drink?” he asked, eying the plastic cup she was holding in her hand.

“Of course not.” The answer came too quickly to be truthful.

“Somehow I don’t believe you”

“Did you never sneak out to drink when you were my age?”

“Many a time,” he admitted, "but always with my friends, in the knowledge that my parents were some dozen miles away"

She muttered something about posh public school boys going on a bender, which Thomas pretended to conveniently miss. 

"Can’t you simply appreciate that I am doing it here, where you can keep an eye on me and make sure I get home safely, instead of some club in London where you'd never know if something happened to me?"

"I'm not sure your parents would think very highly of that logic"

"They’re not here, are they?"

"That doesn’t diminish my responsibility for your well-being"

"I'm pretty sure your responsibility for my well-being only extends to me not blowing myself up with magic"

That had been the essence of his first conversation with her parents, but over time Abigail had become more than just a student to him.

"Would you like to dance?" he asked after a short while, after the band had resumed playing. 

Abigail looked at him strangely. "I don’t know how to," she said, "they don’t teach it at school, and I would have to pay for lessons" With money the Kamara's had to put towards the medical bills of their eldest child.

"Then that will have to change at once," he announced, taking her cup and putting it among a couple of other drinks, in hopes that she would not be able to find it again later on, and stay away from alcohol for the rest of the night, "I cannot allow one of my apprentices to be unable to dance properly, such a thing would be absolutely unacceptable"

Seemingly having resigned herself to her fate, Abigail properly slipped into his blazer, not quite drowning as much in it as she would have done a year before. "Are you going to teach Peter how to dance as well?" Of course, as they had gone to the same school Peter would not have learned to dance either.

His gaze slipped to Peter, standing not far away with his mother, watching his father and the rest of the band as they begun another song.

"Of course" - If Peter was going to marry Beverley Brooks some day Thomas would not allow him to make a fool of himself during their first dance - "but let him remain blessedly ignorant of that fact for a while longer"

He showed her how to position her hands and move her feet, leading her in the easiest dance he knew. She was smaller than anyone he had danced with since his younger sister had reached adulthood - Molly still steadfastedly refused to dance with him - but as soon as he felt that Abigail was comfortable with the steps of the dance, he taught her some easy figures, which she seemed to like more than simply moving in circles together.

"I can't see how this is a useful skill to have," Abigail said after a while, brows furrowed in concentration.

"It really isn't, you are perfectly right in that regard, Abigail, but nevertheless it is a nice thing to do with someone that you like. Honestly, I am appalled that it no longer is the normal thing to do"

"You haven't done much dating in the last fifty years, have you"

It had been far longer than that, but he refrained from telling Abigail as much. "Nowadays you simply swipe left and couple on your phone, I am"  _ unfortunately  _ "aware of that"

"You swipe  _ right  _ and  _ match _ "

"I apologize for not being aware of the modern vernacular"

Abigail snorted. "If you made half the effort to learn how people speak now - or how to google stuff - that you put into rereading things that predate the concept of christanity you would be perfectly aware of the  _ modern vernacular _ "

While that might be true, Thomas had lived through several changes in the way people spoke - and he was relatively certain that he had missed perhaps a dozen or so in the decades between the end of the war and the night he had met Peter. There seemed to be little reason for him to keep up with the times, when time itself was slipping through his fingers as it were. “I don’t think that someone even half my age could be expected to know about such things”

“That really depends on the people they are surrounded by,” Abigail said, “I wouldn’t expect someone with no contact to people younger than themselves to know about that sort of thing, but you are  _ only  _ surrounded by younger generations, by the nature of your existence, so perhaps you  _ should  _ try to be more aware of how things are evolving”

"Because I will fossilize even more than I already have otherwise, I assume"

"You're not old enough to be a fossil, antique at most. But yes," she said, stepping on his foot.

"Maybe you  _ should  _ teach me how to use this Google affair." He twirled her around. "But don’t tell Peter"


End file.
